Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-11-16

1
here and there, from this and that part {
society, and from this and that part of th
earth, there comes up a thrilling solo {
love, or warble of worship, or swee
duet of patience, they are drowned out b
. discord that shakes the earth.
Paul says, "The whole creation groar
eth, and while the nightingale, and tn
woodlark, and the canary, and the plove
sometimes sing SO sweetly that their note
have been written out in musical notation
and it is found that the cuckoo sings in tn
key of D, and that the cormorant is bass
in the winged choir; yet sportsmen's gul
and the autumnal blast often leave then
ruf1ed and bleeding, or dead in meadow O
forest. Paul was right, for the groan il
nature browns out the prima donnas of tn
Isky.
Tartini, the great musical composer
dreamed one night that he made contrac
with Satan, the latter to be ever in the com
poser's service. But one night he handed
to Satan a violin, on which Diabolus play
ed such sweet music that the composer was
awakened by the emotion and tried to re
produce the sounds, and thereform waf
written Tartini's most famous piece, entitled
the tDevil's Sonata a dream ingenious
but faulty, for all melody descends from
heaven, and only discords ascend from hell
ALI hatreds, feuds, controversies, backbit
ings and revenges are the DEVILS sonata, are
diabolical fugue, are demoniac phantasy,
are grand march of doom, are allegro oi
perdltion.
But if in this world things in general are
out of tune to frail our ears, how much more
so to ears angelic and deiic. It takes skill
ed artist fully to appreciate disagreement
of sound. Many have no capacity to detect
a defect of musical execution, and, though
there were in one bar as many offences
against harmony as could crowd in between
the lower F of the bass and the higher G. of
the soprano, it would give them no discom-
fort, while on the forehead of the educated
artist beads ofperspiration would stand out
as a result of the narrowing dissonauce.
While an amateur was performing on a
piano and had just struck the wrong chord,
John Sebastian Bach, the immortal COM
poser, entered the room, and the amateur
rose in embarrassment, and Bach rushed
past the host, who stepped forward to greet
him, and before the key board had stopped
vibrating, put his adroit hand upon the keys
and changed the painful inharmony into
glorious cadence. Then Bach turned and
gave salutation to the host who had invited
him.
But the worst of all discords is moral dis
cord. If society and the world are painful
ly discordant to imperfect man, what must
they be to perfect God. People try to
define what sin is. 1t seems to me that sin
is getting out of harmony with God, dis
agreement with His holiness, with His pu-
rity, with His love, with His commands, our
will clashing With His will, the finite dash
ing against the infinite, the frail against the
1,o pck
If thousand musicians, with flute, and
cornet-a- piston, and trumpet, and violo n
cello, and hautbois, and trombone, aud all
the wind and stringed instruments that
ever gathered in a Dusseldorf jubilee should
resolve that they would play out of tune,
and put concord to the rack, and make the
place wild with shricking, and grating, and
| rasping sounds, they could not make such a
pandemonium as that which RACES in sim
full soul when God listens to the play of its
thonghts, passions and motious-discord,
| lifelong discord, maddening discord. The
world pays more for discord than it does
for consonance. High prices have been
paid for music. One man gave two hundred
and twenty five dollars to hear the Swedish
songstress in New York, and another six
hundred and twenty. five dollars to hear her
| in Boston, and another six hundred and
| fifty dollars to hear her in Providence
Fabulous prices have been paid for sweet
sounds, but far more has been paid for dis.
cord. The Crimean war cost one billion
seven hundred million dollars, and our
American civil war over nine and half
billion dollars, aud the war debts of profess
ed Christian nations are about fifteen billion
dollars. The world pays for this red ticket,
which admits it to the saturnalla of broken
bones, and death agonies, and destroyed
cities, and ploughed graves, and crushed
hearts, any amount of money Satan asks.
Discordl Discordl
But have to tell you that the song that
the morning stars sang together. at the lay
sumed again. Mozart's greatest overture
was composed ono night when he was
several times overpowered with sleep, and
artists say they can tell the places in the
music where he was falling asleep, and the
places where he awakened. So the overture
of the morning stars, spoken of in my text,
has been asleep, but it will awaken and be
more grandly rendered by the evening stars
Of the worlds existence than by the morn
ing stars, and the vespers will be sweeter
than the mathis. The work of all good
men and women, and of all good churches,
and all reform associations is to bring the
race back to the original harmony The
rebellious heart to be attuned, social life tc
be attuned, commercial Othics to be attun.
ed, Internationally to be attuned, hemis
pheres to be attuued. But by what fore:
and in what wayp
In oden time the choristers had tuning
fork with two prongs, and they would strike
it on the back of pew or music rack anG
put it to the ear, aud then start the tune
and all tue other voices would j1iu. In
modern orchestra the leader has complete
instrument, rightly attuned and he sounds
that, aud all the other performers turn the
keys OF their instruments to make them
correspond. and sound the bow over the
string and listen, and sound out over again,
until all the keys are screwd to concert
pitch, and the dscords melt into one great
symphony, and the curtain hoists, and the
baton taps, aud the audiences are raptured
with Schumann's ''Paradlse and the PERI
or Rossini's ''Stabat Mater" or Bach's
"Magnifcat' in D, or Gounod's "Redemp.
tion."
Now, our world can never be attuned by
an imperfect instrument. Even Cremona
would not do. Heaven has ordained the
only instrument, and it is made out of the
wood of the cross, and the voices that &C.
company it are imported voices, cantatrices
of the first Christmas night, when heaven
serenaded the earth with: 'sGlory to God
in the highest and on earth peace, good
will to men," Lest we start too far of, and
get lostin generalities, we had better begin
with ourselves, get our own hearts and life
in harmony with the eternal Christ. Oh,
for His Almighty Spirit to attune US, to
chord our will with His will, to modulate
our life with His life, and bring us into
unison with all that is pure, and self sacri-
ficing and heavenly. The strings of our
nature are all broken aud twisted, and the
bow is so slack it cannot evoke anything
mellifluons. The instrument made for
heaven to play on has been roughly twang-
ed and struck by influences worldly and
dsmoniac 0, master hand of Christ, restore
this split, and fractured, and despoiled, and
unstrung nature until first it shall wall out
for our sin and then trill with divine par.
don.
| The whole world must also be attuned by
the same power. A few days ago was in
the Fairbanks Weighing Scale Manufactory
of Vermont. Six hundred hands, and they
have never had strike. Complete harmo
| nv hatwaan 1ahor and capital tho onoro